Saturday, September 29, 2007

When you play online poker, be sure to use all the features of the site on which you are playing.

I've been playing the 6-max NL tables on FTP almost exclusively lately.

The first thing I do when I sit is to do a player search on every player sitting at my table. (In the lobby, click the 'Requests' menu item and then select 'Find a Player...' and type in the player name, or copy and paste it from the chat window.)

I then put a blue mark on every player that's playing more than 3 or 4 tables at the same time. It seems there's always at least one playing 6-8 tables no matter when I play.

Those players are playing by the book. They only enter pots with pre-flop raises, they always continuation bet, and they only call a check-raise/re-raise if they have a monster. Call a lot of their raises in any position, and play back at them often. Don't get over committed because they will go to war with an overpair or usually even top pair, but they'll give up basically ANYTHING else.

I suppose there are other ways to take advantage of these multi-tablers, like stalling when it is your turn so they might get distracted by action at another table. I don't really do anything special except assume that they aren't going to get any trickier than a continuation bet.

Of course I'm not playing very high levels, and you might find less people playing tons of tables at the $2/$4 NL games, but at the stakes I play, it's a lot of fun. I'm still not really comfortable leaving a lot of money on FTP, so I stick to the low $25-$50 stakes games.

It's not like I have anything against people that multi-table, hell I envy them. I simply can't do it. But I'm going to take advantage of them if I can. It's the nature of the game.

Friday, September 28, 2007

I used to be a sports journalist. Very small time, I assure you. But in that time I covered the gamut of sports events, mostly high school, but extensive college coverage and a selection of professional sports.

As a journalist you treat athletes at different levels differently. You just do.

When I covered high school athletics, the players were treated with kid gloves. They were, after all, just kids. If a player fumbled the ball on the goal line, it went into the story as "The Bulldogs fumbled on the goal line," not "Mike Smith, like he has 12 times before, fumbled the ball but this time it cost his team the game." These kids are trying their best, and they don't deserve to have their mistakes publicized. 1000 kids in the state fumbled the football that night, this one kid doesn't deserve to be singled out in the newspaper.

Pro athletes are completely on the other side. If a pro athlete errs, you can break out the tar and feathers. Editorializing about the quality of play and effort from pro players is everyday fodder for sports columns. It's part of the deal. If you're getting paid, in most cases handsomely, to play a sport, you better expect some criticism, much of it totally unfair. If you can't handle that, you really shouldn't be a pro athlete.

College football falls somewhere in between. Coaches are fair game, but the students are still just amateur athletes, and just kids really, barely older than their high school counterparts. If a player fumbles he does get singled out, but you try not to ridicule him.

Based on that, you'd have to say that when Jenni Carlson basically called a Oklahoma State Cowboys player a "mama's boy" in The Daily Tenneseean you'd conclude that her comments were totally out of line. And of course they were out of line, but not totally when given the proper perspective.

Having lived in Oklahoma, I can tell you that college athletics are different there. With the exception of a temporary stay by the New Orleans Hornets NBA team, Oklahoma has no professional sports teams. But they don't see it that way. The atmosphere in Oklahoma is that THEIR COLLEGE SPORTS TEAMS are treated AS IF THEY WERE PROFESSIONALS.

This is not an environment that Jenni Carlson created, it's one that she walked into. College players are celebrated and demonized in the pages of the Daily Oklahoman routinely. That's just how they operate in OKC. It's not right and it's not fair, but that's the way it is.

Absolutely what Jenni Carlson did was wrong, but totally understandable given the environment she works in.

Monday, September 24, 2007

It was odd sitting at my desk watching all the hourly employees, including the supporting union construction workers walk out of the building between 10 and 10:30 this morning. A lot of them were dragging tool boxes, presumably so nobody could come in and do their jobs in their stead, although that could never happen. Every one of them also had a cooler.

There were meetings telling us what work we can and cannot do, what work we have to get expressed permission to do, etc. There were also instructions on how to cross the picket line, especially if you drive a foreign car. If they put up too much of a fight, turn around and try another entrance. Watch out for drunks.

I do, in fact, drive a foreign car. A Nissan, made in New Jersey. Betcha didn't know New Jersey was a foreign land, did you? You've obviously never been there.

Anyhoo, I'm likely to catch a lot of hell from the picketers tomorrow morning when I attempt to go to work. I had to be there by 5:30am this morning for some special duties but those got canceled for tomorrow due to there being NOTHING going on. But I'm thinking that 5:30am is a good time to get through the line with the least amount of hassle over my foreign Jersey-mobile. Although if there are going to be drunks at 5:30am, they should be good and ripped.

They are supposed to be at their posts 24-hours-a-day, but since the TV cameras were there this afternoon they were present in mob-style throngs. Hopefully there will be no cameras tomorrow morning. Root for a busy news day for me.

Wednesday, September 19, 2007

Look closely at the guy on the far left in the cast picture from Survivor China. Below is the individual cast picture of that dude.

That is Jean-Robert Bellande, of WSOP Circuit fame, finishing 3rd in March 2005 all the while making a total ASS out of himself with table talk. In case you don't remember, this will jog your memory: "EXCELLENT LAYDOWN!" His profession is listed as "Professional Poker Player." I plan on watching this season just to root for him to get voted off. Based on his personality at the table, it shouldn't take more than a couple of episodes.

Tuesday, September 18, 2007

What's the difference between trying to steal defensive signals and roughing the kicker? One is "cheating" the other is "a penalty." You might say one is premeditated and the other is unplanned.

So what is the difference between videotaping the defensive signals and yelling out fake snap counts? They're both premeditated. They're both specifically against the rules.

Yet the J-E-T-S (who narced on the Patriots for the video taping thing) are ABSOLUTELY guilty of yelling out fake snap counts in the game against Baltimore on Sunday.

Why is that violation of the rules any different than what the Patriots did? Because it was on the field and committed by players instead of coaches? Because there was technology involved? They were both warned in advance that they were breaking the specific rules that forbid that behavior.

I guarantee you there will be no fine or draft picks involved in the punishment of the Jets cheating, if there is any punishment at all.

Monday, September 17, 2007

I may have heard the worst 80's song ever on XM radio while driving home this evening..."Hot Girls In Love" by Loverboy.

She's turning on the heatShe's got the magic touchShe's turning on the heatIt's just a little too muchShe's turning on the heatIt's a hundred aboveHot girls in love

Maybe 100F is hot in Canada. Or they're on Celsius, in which case she's pretty darn hot. Either way, shitty song.

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The big deal about SuprNova coming back is that there were some leaked emails by a company called "Media Defender" which basically proved that they set up a P2P sharing site specifically for entrapping people who attempt to share copy written material. I didn't read all the emails, but there was an attempt to "incentivize" the process, which basically means lure people into sharing copy written material by rewarding them in some manner, be it financial or otherwise.

The other big news of the day in illegal downloads is Spiralfrog who are trying to be an alternative to illegal downloads. They have a big (Vivendi/Universal) catalog and offer free music if you look at their ads at least once a month. Pretty fair deal, if it's sustainable. Even if it's not and all your music expires, who cares it was free, right?

The only thing earth shattering about this is their wholesale rejection of Apple/iPod. The exclusion of iPod is pretty unavoidable as they don't support .wma files and that looks like the format Spiralfrog is using. But there's no reason someone couldn't support a DRMd .wma player for Macs, yet the company is not doing so as a big "fuck you" to Apple. Good for them. It will be mere moments before this is hacked to pieces, but it's nice to see someone take shots at iTunes, the largest music distributor outside of Wal-Mart.

So run out to iTunes, or Spiralfrog or your favorite (legitimately illegitimate) P2P site and see if you can download "Hot Girls In Love." Do it NOW!

Thursday, September 13, 2007

Neal Boortz is an idiot conservative radio talkshow host who also blogs. In his blog yesterday he posted this photo:

Along with this description:

This attached photo was taken at a competition in June 2006. The competition was between 9 women for best makeover.

They had every possible beauty treatment available to them over a period of 12 hours before the contest. Look at the before and after photos. It really is shocking!

Conclusion - there are no ugly women, only poor women.... If you had the money....Good Grief!!! BTW, the woman 2nd from the left won the contest.

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Yeah, the photo is actually from the 2004 Fox Television show "The Swan" in which the contestants all got extensive plastic surgery among other beauty improvements. I'm sure if the show was on Fox News instead of Fox Television, Neal would have known it.

What a buffoon.

P.S. He's even wrong about the winner. The second from the left didn't win, the third from the right did.

Tuesday, September 11, 2007

From Wikipedia: Ratfucking is an American slang term for political sabotage or dirty tricks.

The term "ratfucking" was exposed in the book "All the Presidents Men" by Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein, and the basic point of the story was that the people who participated in it were essentially morons.

How can you tell it's done by the regular idiot republican ratfuckers? Because they spelled the word "phony" wrong. Go back to push polling, ratfuckers. When you lie about your opponents' sexual deviancies on the phone, you're not required to spell.

Monday, September 10, 2007

Yes, I spent the ENTIRE day following my Fantasy Football League's results. I thought it would make the games more interesting, sort of how having bets on the games does. Wrongo! Dull Dull Dull.

After going to the supermarket to stock up on supplies, I watched all of the Philly-Green Bay game only to have my receiver catch ONE PASS in the entire game. YAWN.

My intention was to devote the entire day to football, but that didn't happen as I got so bored I fired up WoW for the second game, Chicago vs. San Diego. Another yawnfest, but at least I got two bubbles in 69...almost there! (I'm laughing to myself because all the poker heads are going 'he what?' and the one or two WoW players are going 'cool!')

I used the hour between game two and the Sunday Night Game to make dinner for Mrs. Bogey and myself.

Game three was a snoozefest, which is exactly what I did, falling asleep before the game even ended. Nine hours is a lot of football in one day. So I still had to wake up this morning and read the scores of my colleagues, just as if I hadn't watched the games at all.

The moral of the story? If you're going to watch a lot of football, make a few bets on the games. Or maybe it's go outside and do something with your life for a change.

Tuesday, September 04, 2007

When driving back from lovely Dayton Ohio last month I conveniently maintained my speed of 80mph even though the 14-lane interstate I was driving on lowered its limit to 55 for 100 yards or so. I was stupid, I got caught, I must pay the fine.

Due to some other complications of my expense situation, (the hotel double charged me for the first night,) the normally smooth process of expense reimbursement has been rather protracted. I put the ticket from the Louisville Officer in my expense folder and promptly forgot about it.

I opened it today and discovered that the unpaid ticket is due in two days. If you mail in the payment, it must be received SEVEN days before the due date.

DOH! So it looks like I'll be driving up to Louisville on Thursday to pay this ridiculous ticket. At least the court time is 7pm, but that's Eastern Time and Nashville is in Central Time (Even though I think Nashville is actually EAST of Louisville) so I have to be there by 6pm. It's a 3 hour drive (if I speed) and I have no idea where the courthouse is...

My other option is to call a lawyer in Louisville and have him take care of it for me. It will cost me around $50 in gas so I don't think there's any way a lawyer will be a cheaper option.

I didn't have plans for Thursday beyond watching the NFL opener anyway. Sadly, I think the deciding factor will be that I don't have any fantasy players on either team playing.